• Tide and Current Taxi: 2012

Rebecca, Matthew, and I launched from Marina 59, out into the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

I thought Rebecca would like the area,

one of her paintings in particular reminded me of it.

Wasted and forgotten land, formed out of garbage landfill, it still offers up artifacts of its strange, hardscrabble past,

like this bone left over from the animal rendering plants that lined Dead Horse Bay.

When the map of New York was drawn, this was the negative space.

But just below the water, it flourishes with life,

like this horshoe crab we spied creeping along the seabed.

We set out across the channel,

to explore the islands south of JFK airport.

An aerial shot of Jamaica Bay shows a network of rivers runnning through marshy islands.

From the ground you can see why.

The ground here lies so low, that there is barely a distinction between land and sea,

just a thin membrain of life surviving half in and half out of the water.

We kept our bearings by the landing pattern of JFK.

We spotted a large osprey nest in the grass,

and pulled up quietly to wait for its owners.

It was fascinating to sit still and listen to the birds.

Their calls seemed to change from cries of alarm,

to conversational chirping.

We paddled through the winding paths,

the water so shallow that you could see right down to the bed of mussels that made its floor.

At some point I thought that we could drag the boat across a patch of low land to aviod a windy and difficult stretch,

but the mud was deep and it would be hard to pull the boat over.

“I almost think we should do it just becuase it would be so much like “Fitzcarraldo,” said Matt.

“That’s no reason to do something.” said Rebecca.

The sun was almost down,

and we had an important mission after dark,

so we paddled back out across the windy waves,

back to the cove that houses Marina 59 and the ‘Boatel’.

The Boatel is a collection of derelict boats made into bedrooms and living spaces,

a pretty collection of debris,

and nautical waste gems like this raft by Catherine Yeager.

“Someone should make a hotel out of all those school buses.” said Matt.

After dark, some friends gathered on the dock,

to see some pictures from Tide and Current Taxi, 2012.

I showed images from all the trips that I took this summer.

Then when it came time to tell about the trip that Matt, Rebecca, and I took that day,

they floated by on cue, and I got in to continue the story from the water.

We made up new, imaginary parts, with images of a shark attack,

and our eventual landing on a paradise island.

It was like we really had landed on a paradise island, back on the dock, chatting with friends.

Thanks to every one for hanging out! From left to right, that is: Rebecca Bird, Marie Lorenz, Liz Bentley, Lillian Gerson (as a ray of light), Billy Grant, Matthew Thurber and Paula Murgia.